BS: lost fragment of ancient continent

Subject: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 09:38 AM

From the University of British Columbia:
They were digging for diamonds on Baffin Island,
and they found a geological link between Scotland and Labrador.

Expletive deleted!
The above link does not work.
But the article may still be pulled up
from a search within the UBC webpages.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Iains
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 10:39 AM

Here you go.
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-geologists-lost-fragment-ancient-continent.html

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 10:48 AM

Even as far south as Maine used to be joined with Scotland.
The Atlantic rift is in part the engine respondsible.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 11:00 AM

Get yourself a copy of Hutton's Arse by Malcolm Rider. The most enlightening and entertaining geology book I've ever read.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Iains
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 11:17 AM

He wrote an excellent book on the geological interetation of wireline logs as well. He had a knack of turning arcane squiggles into english, unlike many of the industry texts

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 02:22 PM

I see from the article that DeBeers is sharing date with the University in hopes that they will be beneficial to both parties.

Several years ago I read a library book about the occurrence of valuable minerals. The author said that very little is known because mineral companies do not share information about the deposits. Good for DeBeers for being brave enough to break with tradition.

I asked Google Maps where Baffin Island is, and they found Baffin Bay, but not the island. Wiki says Baffin Island is the biggest in Canada, so it's got to be the big island just left of Baffin Bay.

Thanks for an interesting thread.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Iains
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 04:04 PM

@Leeneia: Although the BGS has statutory rights of access to records, core and samples from boreholes drilled to depths greater than 30 m for mineral exploration and 15 m for water supply assessment, most of the records held in the collections are from boreholes of shallower depth, that have been deposited voluntarily. Offshore the data is captured by legislated reporting requirements. It is also an online resource for the public, academics and anyone else http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html I have logged kilometers of core but only delivered it twice to the geological survey. Once in Snowdonia after drilling Snowdon for copper and the second time delivering core gained from Dover to Folkestone. This was delivered down to one of the wartime tunnels under Dover castle. A tedious hike carrying 4" coreboxes. The main collection is in Nottingham. Any confidential data held is only released with the owners consent.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Mar 20 - 04:34 PM

Where Baffin Island is:

I went to Mapquest for this one.
Left of Baffin Bay, there are two large masses of land
which are islands.
The northernmost is Ellesmere Island.
South of Ellesmere Island,
north of Hudson Bay and
northwest of the Labrador Sea,
is Baffin Island.


On the Mapquest map, it is true,
the more northern of the two,
Ellesmere, appears larger than Baffin to its south.
But I am presuming
that this map has the usual distortions
which make landmasses
nearer either the North or South Poles
appear far larger than they really are.


And then we get into the distinctions in a different language,
the First Nation language of
what is now the Province of Nunavut.

"Statistics Canada", according to Mapquest, names "Baffin Region"
while the provincial government of Nunavut calls the same area
the "Qikiqtaaluq" region.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Mar 20 - 03:45 AM

Baffin Island - Wiki

Not bafflin' at all.............






I'll get my theodolite

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Charmion
Date: 25 Mar 20 - 09:03 AM

Nunavut is a territory, with only limited local autonomy and its budget funded by the federal government.

Going provincial takes a bit more economic horsepower than Nunavut can muster at present.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Mar 20 - 06:44 PM

I know what prompted me, Charmion,
to say province instead of territory.
The article in the link referred to the location
of the cores, with their kimberlites,
as a province --
and it was a designation for the mineral company, not the island.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Mar 20 - 11:55 PM

Yep, various parts of the Canadian shield, which is the ancient core of North America, are referred to as provinces. Grenville, Superior, Huron are a few.

I was just checking out the Grenville Province and was surprised to see that it goes down into Mexico. Why was I not informed?

Ah, how great it was, when I was living in Wisconsin, to go north into the Canadian Shield and see the hard, mysterious, colorful rocks of northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: lost fragment of ancient continent
From: Gurney
Date: 26 Mar 20 - 10:34 PM

Well, I live on a fragment of an ancient continent, too.
Just a tiny bit, though, just New Zealand.
Most of the moving parts went on to become South America, Africa, India, Australia.....   Antarctica is the part that stayed home.

You just can't rely on supercontinents.   Here today, gone tomorrow.